Todoroki Hotaru: Origin
by WritingTrash
Summary: They didn't like her. Or maybe they didn't trust her. They said she was just like her parents.


**So I finally decided to read the manga and let me tell you, that last chapter killed me. Made me rethink Hotaru and her whole dynamic a little, but anyway, here's a little fic to excuse my absence. ****Exams are finally mostly over for me!**

"Will that be all for you today?" The cashier asked. She was a young woman, probably not much older than Hotaru.

The redhead nodded wordlessly and offered the woman her father's card. She scanned it with a glance.

The screen beeped a few times and the cashier's eyebrows furrowed. "Todoroki Touya?" She asked, looking up at Hotaru.

"My father." Hotaru answered blandly. Her golden eyes flickered to the rest of the line behind her.

Had they heard?

Would they care?

"Oh. Uh, okay. Here." She passed the card back and then gave her the plastic bags.

Hotaru didn't say anything back, but gave the store a threatening glance before she left. The glass door's bell chimed as she left.

As she walked home, she kept her face down, barely glancing up, if only to make sure she didn't run into anything. She watched it all through her blood colored bangs.

The concrete sidewalk was cracked, as it had been for years. She could remember when she used to attend the elementary school down the road and would always run home every afternoon. She said that she liked to get home to see Dad earlier, but she knew it was really to avoid the children her age. She had tripped and fallen multiple times on the uneven concrete in her rush, knees and knuckles stained red as her hair and the shouts of the other kids in her ears.

They never liked her. Or maybe they just didn't trust her.

The teenager turned a corner as a hand suddenly gripped her arm. "Hey!"

Hotaru tried to pulling out of the hold, but was instead shoved her into a less traveled street. She was faced with a man much taller than her, his skinny bony fingers still gripping her. He had been in the store, of course. He must had run to catch up to her, as he was panting barely. She glared up at him.

"Let me go." She commanded coldly. She didn't feel like dealing with _this_ now.

"Your dad is Todoroki Touya?" He gritted through his teeth breathlessly, as if he didn't already know the answer.

"So what if he is?" Hotaru growled in return.

He shook her and her shoulder smashed against the wall behind her, pain blooming in her arm. His grip on her wrist was getting suffocating. "Because one of those damn League of Villains attacks killed my mother! He was part of that, wasn't he?"

She didn't understand why he was asking her. He looked old enough to remember the height of the League, and it's ultimate fall. Surely he watched the news when it all came crashing down, the videos from her father's and mother's trials. She didn't remember any of it. She hadn't been alive. The League had already been a thing of the past by the time she was told what it was.

Whispered behind her back like a secret they didn't trust her with.

Hotaru scowled, staring at him. She slowly reached down with her other hand, careful not to alert the man still holding onto her. "I'm sorry for your loss, but it was twenty years ago. My father has moved past that part of his life, maybe you should, too."

He blinked in surprise for a second before he spat at her. Hotaru flinched as it hit her face. He smelled like smoke, reminding her of her father. How ironic. "Fuck you and your villain dad. You're probably just like him, huh?"

She liked to think she was pretty level headed most of the time. People like this guy, however, always annoyed her. Her fingertips brushed against the hilt of her knife.

The redhead bared her fangs. "Let me go, or this will end very badly for you."

"Yeah right, you crazy bitch. You can't do-" Before he could continue his gloating, Hotaru finally grabbed the knife strapped to her leg. It slid out of the sheath and she swiped at him. He released her, jumping away from her blade. Blood slid down his arm in a line and she licked her lips.

"What the fuck?" He gasped, pressing a hand to his cut.

Hotaru twisted the knife in her hand, years of practice making the movement second nature. Her wrist burned with the movement, but she bit her lip to keep her gasp of pain contained.

"Stay away from me. I'll let you leave now, but if you follow me home, I'll gut you like a fish." She hissed. The man looked furious, but didn't say a word. Hotaru hesitated, but clinched the knife tighter and grabbed her groceries.

Then she ran home on the cracked concrete, just like when she was younger.

"Taru? That you?"

Hotaru kicked off her black sneakers and the solid locks clicked into place. "Yeah."

She walked into the kitchen, her father in a tank top and sweatpants, old scars and staples on display. Not that she expected much else, her father didn't ever really get dressed up unless her family came over. Even that was only because her grandmother and her aunt liked to fuss over him.

Without a word, she started emptying the bags while her father finished cooked. He had gotten a little better over the years, but a smoky smell still hung in the air.

Hotaru always thought it compisated for his lost quirk.

"I got hair dye." She finally said, glancing at his bright red roots. He couldn't dye it all the time like he had when he was younger, but Hotaru knew he still preferred the black to the red. Natsuo had suggested he just bleach it a birthday or two ago, but hard chemicals like that weren't allowed inside the house.

Her father finally turned around at that, bright blue eyes surprised. She offered the box to him as he flipped it over in his patchwork hands. Then he snickered and raise a hand to mess up her hair. "You're too nice to me, Taru."

Hotaru shrugged, ducking away from his hand. "It was on sale and I know you like black."

He grinned and grabbed her, holding her so he could finally succeed in destroying her neat bangs. Hotaru just gave him a resigned sigh as he cackled. Her father finally released once her hair resembled a spiky mess like his. "Okay, you can go change or whatever. I'm cooking pizza."

"Microwaveable?"

"Nah, Shouto left a few you actually put in the oven last time she was here. I burnt the first one, but there's still one left we can share." He explained.

"Oh, okay." Hotaru left him and his oven pizza, walking into her room and shutting the door softly.

She sighed again and resigned silence answered her. She set her phone on the desk, along with her ID and keys. There was a stack of her clothes sitting on her bed and she sat beside it, glancing at her dark t-shirts.

After a moment, when she was sure her father wouldn't call for her, she rolled up her sleeve and looked down at her bruised wrist. It wasn't bad, certainly not the worst injury she had ever had, but it would still leave a mark for a few days, at least.

Hotaru slid to the floor and dug underneath her bed for the box of medical supplies she kept. The camera in the corner winked at her but she didn't care. She didn't have anything to hide from them, they could watch all they wanted. All her secrets were shared with whoever watched her behind those cameras. Her father, however. She didn't like to worry him, especially not over things like this.

Her fingers brushed against the box and she grabbed it, unpacking a few bandages and wrapping her wrist. It wouldn't do anything to heal it, but it would at least keep it hidden until it faded. This way, she could play it off as a knife accident. She had plenty of those, it wouldn't be unbelievable. Her fingers and arms were littered with little pale scars.

"Taru?" Hotaru flinched, quickly fitting the lid back on her box. "Pizza's ready!"

"Okay." She called, shoving the box under her bed and scrambling to her feet.

The redhead opened the door to leave, and paused when the camera caught her eye again. She looked at it for a moment pretending she could see whatever poor police officer was stuck watching her now. Hotaru scowled, then reached over and grabbed the knife from her desk and stuck it in her waistband. The door clicked shut behind her.

"So how was Crazy today?" Dad asked, looked vaguely uninterested in whatever answer she would give him.

Hotaru answered to be polite anyway. "The usual. She had a pretty normal conversation with me, but then she asked me for some blood and I had to leave."

"Hm."

The redhead took another bite of her slice before continuing. "Her doctors talking about letting her out of isolation. They think it might be better for her to interact with other people."

Her father snorted. "Yeah, right, they better take every sharp thing out of that room or they're going to have a stabbing on their hands. Don't they know what started her whole murder rampage anyway?"

"Mental hospitals don't allow any sharp things anyway. They still make me take out all my piercings when I visit." She informed him, ignoring his question.

Hotaru wasn't sure why he expected anything different anymore. Her mother had been in a mental hospital for the last seventeen years, and she'd probably die there. Asking every time she went wouldn't change that.

He shouldn't care either.

They never loved each other. They had barely been friends.

Just a few fucked up people who got stuck in the same fucked up place at the same fucked up time, as her father liked to say.

"It's good that you visit her." He finally said.

Hotaru glanced at him and shrugged. "I feel like I should. She doesn't always act as crazy as she is with me and the doctors like me, so." It wasn't like her family ever visited her either, either repulsed by her or dead.

She probably related to her more than any other family her mother had, since they shared the same quirk. The same tendencies. Just a different childhood. If Hotaru hadn't gotten the help that she did, she could've ended up in the same place.

Dad gave her one of his scarred smirks. "It is good. I wish I coulda visited my mom more when she was hospitalized."

"But now she visits you." Hotaru finished with a small smile.

"Yep. Maybe you can break the cycle."

"Have kids and manage to stay out of a mental hospital? I don't know, Dad, I hear being a pro-hero is pretty stressful." Hotaru shrugged.

"Damn, guess our family's fucked."

"Isn't it already?"

He snorted with a smoky sigh. "Yeah, guess it is."

"Are you coming home after?" Dad asked, leaning against her doorway as she tucked a throwing knife into her sneaker. The exam didn't allow outside weapons, but she never left home with at least three on herself, just in case.

"No, probably not. It'll probably be too late. I'm meeting Yuki there, since she still has regular school, then Aunt Shouto said I could spend the night at her house and come home in the morning." She said.

"Better hurry, I wanna hear about the ass you kicked."

Hotaru snorted. "I think you're being too optimistic."

"Nah, you'll be fine." Hotaru wanted to believe him, but she had terrible luck.

She straightened up, her knives hidden away in her clothes. The rest of them hung on the wall, a set of mismatched ones she had collected over the year. With her quirk, knives only made sense, and they were pretty, so she had a fairly large collection. A few more were hidden around her room, just in case, but only her and the camera knew about those.

"Seriously, Taru, you're gonna be fine. Just be smart." Dad reminded.

"I will be." They walked toward the door together, lingering in the entry way.

"Be safe on the way, and back."

Hotaru sighed. "I will." She was, every time she left.

Dad finally nodded, and she opened the door. "Good luck."

"Thanks."

Hotaru shut the door, leaving him alone again. She felt bad about it, every time, but he could never come with her. She supposed that's what she traded for having him in her life at all

The camera on the porch watched her as she left and the one on the fence wished her good luck. Then the locks clicked shut behind her.

**Not everything was really explained in that, but it'll come out gradually as the series progresses.**


End file.
